but having completed that quest, the time for unveiling has arrived.
Now before yazall join in the chorus of ”not another bloody MDF puzzle”, read (or fast-track) further down for a head spinning, 1,440° about face.
As with all my other puzzles, it was plagiarised from the above advertising brochure, a solution video and the drawn up in SketchUp.
Similarly to most of my puzzles, this one wasn’t without incidents either. During glue-up of the puzzle parts, it seems like I didn’t even zag but deggaz and assembled one of the parts incorrectly, making it a “flesti fo egami rorrim”,
a common mistake I often repeated in the past… Had to re-cut and assemble in the correct orientation,
OOPS!
corrected… even managed a zagged with my pictures.
As a reminder to myself, I quickly rigged up an assembly diagram, to ensure I didn’t cock up again,
it’s OK, it made cents to me… less rework.
I even went to the trouble to number the box sides to ensure that they were assembled in the right order,
which was another oft repeated oopsie… picture of a different puzzle, but the same issue.
This basically forced me into making a full mirrored set and another box (the box being symmetrical, can be Uni-sex and can go into both both normal and southpaw outhouses),
in order not to have wasted valuable assembly/buffing time... the pieces are a bugga to buff.
With a self-satisfied smirk on my face, I presented the puzzle to my buddy who was not gruntled… in fact he was disgruntled. As an intended present to his friend (or whatever of his), he poo-pooed the MDF and was more than willing to pay Internet advertised shekels for a solid wood puzzle.
Shekels have never been an incentive for me, however, the offer of a cask or two got me salivating and bee-lining for SketchUp, as with solids, 3mm would have caused a lot of unnecessary work and wastage to mill a 6mm board down to 3mm. The model had to be changed to 6mm thick box which required radical changes to the “finger joints”…
original 3mm
new 6mm
Fortunately the 6mm walnut agreed with my laser and the fumes were a pleasant diversion from the MDF stink.
It was now a case of forensic clean up and get rid of the burn marks… heaps of sanding flush which was a pain to ensure the edges didn’t get convexed for such a small piece.
I cut some pine strips of 19mm x 19mm and dissected them to create enough pieces of proportionate lengths to make up the three pieces… 3 of 57mm, 3 of 38mm and 4 of 19mm.
Glued them up to make the 3 pieces,
solved,
But I wasn’t happy with the way it looked… I thought that individual cubes would look better and after seeing the glue joins, thought that bevelled edges were the order of the day.
Had some cubes left over from a previous puzzle and laboriously put each one through my inverted router,
though no vino, as the fingers were precariously close to the router blade,
Unfortunately I’m guessing it was with my cautious feed that resulted in a lot of friction burns on the pieces, and it took me an age to try to sand off as much as I could… not totally happy, but I wasn’t going to spend days sanding, so finally made up the pieces.
Something was wrong… looks like the pieces I had left over were not 19mm³ but more like 17.5mm ³
and were just too small to build up the puzzle… bugga! Dontcha hate those inaccurate rulers?
Cut another 20 19mm³ cubes…
there was no way I was going to manually sand the friction burns, so I set up my lathe to sand the pieces.
Using this jig,
I put the 20 pieces through it
which created satisfactory bevels
(instead of round overs).
Glued up the cubes,
and put the solution instructions through its paces with another victory,
I must admit I liked the result, however, there’s no way I’m gonna go through the hassles to give them away for free… long live MDF!
Dimensions:
MDF - 79mm x 79mm x 79mm, including 3mm box side thickness.... based on 24mm³ "cubes".
Solid - 70mm x 70mm x 70mm, including 6mm box side thickness.... based on 19mm³ cubes.
No "finish" on either the MDF of timber versions other than the 3 layers of buffer wax (Tripoli, White Diamond and Carnauba).
Made a video of my about face to the non-MDF impostors and the bevelling of the curves,
------------------------------------- ooooOOOOO The End OOOOOooooo -----------------------------------------
Don’t be crafty Craftisians,... SHARE your craft!
If your first cut is too short... Take the second cut from the longer end... LBD
duckie watching you bevel the edges of those small cubes on the router made me cringe !!!! hell if you wanna trim your nails get a good clipper man ! 😨😬
working with my hands is a joy,it gives me a sense of fulfillment,somthing so many seek and so few find.-SAM MALOOF.
Thanks Dutchy... Roundovers should be clamped, however, that would mean changing clamp position 12 time per cube (216 times per set) and then many edges would need to be sanded to remove some of the router burns... too much hassle and easier to bevel with disc sander for something mass produced and given away for free.
If your first cut is too short... Take the second cut from the longer end... LBD
LIttleBlackDuck commented about 7 hours ago Thanks Dutchy... Roundovers should be clamped, however,. too much hassle and easier to bevel with disc sander for something mass produced and given away for free.
Definitely, edging those cubes is N^3 more work than drilling a few k holes in a board 😱
Good on your test dummy to give the nod for "real" wood versus the termite leavings, but certainly good that you got the prototypes sorted first!
Gotta love that beveler with the disc sander, perfect repeatability, no nubbing the fingers. If I did that the first cube would foul the disc and force me to relocate.
This gets a big 👍 for the visual appeal of the final product, you just need to set up a tent in your yard, ship in some helpers, and off to mass production while you supervise!
OK exceptional work without a doubt. The imagery and supporting documentation very professionally done. Now a suggestion if I may,
Router:- 1. The pinkies are way too close to that mincer in my mind, so I am suggesting a pair of channel Loc type plyers with nylon or HD material attached to the jaws to hold the smaller pieces. 1a. Or as an alternative fashion the blocks in lengths, profile the edges and then cut to size thus reducing the square bullet risk and and airborne mice meat possibilities blurring your safety glasses. Miss assembled items:- 2. Is it possible to make handed puzzles as it seems the error is a mirror image of the correct one.
I am looking forward to seeing your next puzzle! ... will it be a 3D69 release/version
Hope everything is ship shape in Churchill, no doubt C and C paid you a visit while they were here but you didn't let on for security reasons
While Charlie was taking a spin on my 0° ride-on I was showing Camilla how iI did my tumble turns in my spa without knocking myself out... she tried... had to dial 000... didn't trust the defib with all that water.
I shouldn't have mentioned the router... while the 3mm radius doesn't sound as intimidating as a 12mm one, there's gonna be a Bugs (bunny) out there who's gonna test the stats to see how many edges they can do before the claret spills.
I am looking forward to seeing your next puzzle! ...
Fear not, they are all lined up much like Bugs' brother (another bunny) about 5 seconds earlier,
If your first cut is too short... Take the second cut from the longer end... LBD
.skp%20-%20SketchUp%20Pro%202018-007439.png)
.skp%20-%20SketchUp%20Pro%202018-007438.png)
.png)
